All movement around them stopped.

From one second to the next, all eyes were on Freddie, holding the stranger in his death grip like he was a murderer trying to flee the crime scene. The guy thrashed and struggled, but Freddie held firm, his grip only tightening with every passing second.

"What the hell, man?" the stranger burst out at last, freeing his mouth from the hand digging into his face. "I was just talking to her, chill!"

"Just talking to her?" Freddie shot back, his voice resounding through the courtyard and echoing off the walls. "Don't make me laugh! You think I couldn't see you were about to call her a slur?"

Grabbing both of his arms, the stranger tore himself free, taking a step backward and adjusting his shirt. "What is wrong with you," he said. "I was just telling it like it is and you attacked me! He physically assaulted me, did you see that?"

With a grand gesture he turned to the crowd that was rapidly gathering around them. People murmured among themselves. None of them regarded Freddie with much sympathy; all Clara saw in their faces was fear.

"He was harassing her!" Freddie called out to them, his voice strained with anger. "Did you hear what he said to her? Some of you must've heard!"

"He assaulted me!" the stranger said again. "This guy is dangerous, what's he still doing on campus? Someone report him already!"

Freddie's eyes flashed. With a lighting-quick motion he grabbed him by the collar and slammed his back against the wall.

"You could've stopped at being a fucking creep," he said, "but you just had to be a homophobe! You think the shit you say is funny? People like you get people hurt! People like you get others killed!"

The stranger twisted under his grip. "Why do you care about that so much?" he shot back. "It's weird, man! Get out of my face!"

At his collar, Freddie's hands shook. "How many girls have you harassed like that?" he shouted, his voice growing desperate, fraying at the edges. "How many kids did you bully back in high school? Do you even remember the damage you've done?"

Slowly, slowly, an idea dawned on the stranger's face. His understanding turned to disgust. "Don't touch me!" he burst out, shoving Freddie away with both hands and sending him stumbling backwards. "You're into that, huh? Grabbing dudes, getting all in their faces? Don't touch me, you creep!"

Little by little, the color drained from Freddie's face. His body went still as a statue.

"Sick nails, bestie," the guy continued, motioning to his hands. "Who painted them for you, your boyfriend?"

Without warning, without a word, Freddie lunged forward and punched him in the face.

Snapping out of her disbelieving daze, Clara jumped into motion, but it was too late. The stranger retaliated, and shouts broke out from the crowd around them as people called for security or ran off to get help. Not that Freddie seemed to notice. He was taking hit after hit after hit, struggling against the sudden anger of his opponent and fighting a losing battle. His lip was split open, blood dripping from his nose. He barely seemed to notice.

"Freddie!"

He didn't answer. From the corner of her eye, Clara caught uniformed figures approaching, security or the police, she couldn't tell. He didn't seem to have noticed. The other guy hadn't either; he was entirely focused on the fight, his face scratched up and bleeding and his eye swelling shut. Neither of them backed down.

"Freddie!"

Gritting her teeth, Clara strode forward, stepping into the fight only to be pushed aside at once. Muttering a curse, she moved in again, but she never got far before two men in security uniforms stepped into the picture and pulled them apart by pure force.

"What," one of the guards asked, "is going on here?"

Freddie opened his mouth, but his opponent was faster. "It's not my fault," he said. "This guy attacked me out of nowhere!"

"Because he was creeping on my friend and spouting hate!" Freddie burst out, but the guards only moved over to take him by both arms. "Let me go! Won't you listen to me?"

No one answered. Struggling against the grip, he turned to the bystanders. "You all saw it, right?" he shouted. "You all heard what he said! Why didn't any of you say anything?"

Complete silence. His eyes sought out face after face in the crowd, but they all turned away.

"Why aren't you saying anything?" he yelled at them, his voice furious, pleading, his shoulders shaking with rage and despair. Tears glinted in his eyes, blood dripping from his face with every ragged breath, but he barely seemed to notice. "Say something! Why are you silent?"

Still no one spoke. Clara clenched her hands. She, too, wanted to shout at them, yell at them to stop turning away like this wasn't their problem. But she wasn't Freddie; she wouldn't waste her time screaming her lungs out to an apathetic wall of people. She had her own way of dealing with this.

"It's true," she said, placing a comforting hand on Freddie's shoulder. "That guy is my classmate. He tried to ask me out and wouldn't take no for an answer even when I said I have a girlfriend, and when he got mad and started insulting me my friend stepped in. He said some bigoted things to my friend too, everyone here witnessed it."

The security guards studied her, clearly assessing her as she spoke. Clara knew what they saw: the sweet-faced young student in a quirky but proper outfit, soft dirty blond hair pulled back into a sensible ponytail, the living image of a model student. Someone whose word would generally be trusted, although she wasn't too sure how much it weighed against the words of a male classmate who was convinced he was the victim.

"Is that right?" one of the guards asked at length, turning to her classmate. Clara narrowed his eyes at him. Mentally, she was running through all the ways to handle whatever reply he was about to give.

She'd been fully prepared for him denying everything, but he only waved it off. "Sure, maybe I made some stupid comments," he said. "But this guy attacked me! Who's the bigger problem here?"

Freddie strained against the guards' grip. "He deserved it!"

"You be quiet," the other guard told him. "We weren't talking to you."

"But I—"

"Sir, are you a student here?"

"No, but—"

"Then we have to ask you to leave the premises." The guard turned back to Clara's classmate. "Do you need help?"

"Just listen to me—"

"Freddie, it's fine. He's not worth it."

Breaths sharp and shaking, Freddie looked at her, horror and disbelief painting his face. Betrayal. Clara swallowed, then rested a hand on his arm again and stepped close.

"Trust me," she whispered. "I got this."

His gaze was still doubtful, but he complied, letting the guards escort him to the gate without further protest. Clara followed him with her gaze, then she turned to her classmate. Any gentleness she'd shown around Freddie was gone without a trace.

"I know what you're thinking," she told him in an undertone. "You could press charges for this. But if you do that, I want you to remember I can also report you for discrimination and harassment."

He stared blankly, and she smiled like an angel. "Think about it," she said. "There are witnesses and everything, should be enough to at least get you put on probation. You don't want that either, do you?"

He opened his mouth to reply, but she only turned on her heel and took off after Freddie.

She didn't have to look far. He had slumped down right behind the gate, his breaths still ragged, furiously wiping his eyes and nose like a child desperately trying to channel his pain into anger. When she approached he briefly met her gaze, only to turn away and hang his head between his knees.

"Hey," she said softly. "You okay?"

He let out a huff that sounded almost like a laugh. "Why are you asking?" he muttered. "I brought this on myself."

"You also got pretty beat up." Stepping closer, she crouched down at his side, trying to get a glimpse of his face behind the messy curtain of hair. "Do you need those injuries checked out? Anything broken?"

He exhaled sharply, then shook his head. "I'm fine," he said. "Had worse."

"We should still get you cleaned up." Standing back up, Clara offered him a hand. "How far is your place?"

Ever so slightly, he lifted his head. "Couple miles," he said.

"That's too far," Clara replied and made a split-second decision. "Then you're coming to mine," she said. "Can you walk?"

"You really don't have to—"

"Can you?"

Freddie took a deep, shaky breath.

Then he nodded, took her offered hand, and rose to his feet.

For a few strides he walked alongside her, his strides heavy, unsteady, his face tight with pain. Clara watched him from the side, then she stepped closer, offering him her arm and her shoulder to lean on.

"You have class soon," he said as he rested his weight against her. "Won't that be a problem?"

Some small part of Clara told her she should probably feel guilty for skipping class like that, but it was a no-brainer. "I'll just have to skip," she replied. "It's fine, don't worry."

Grip on her shoulders loosening, Freddie straightened, only to hiss and grimace in pain. "I'm sorry," he said.

She furrowed her brow. "Sorry for what?"

"Causing a scene…I should've controlled myself," he muttered, blue eyes briefly seeking out hers before fleeing her gaze again, resting on the quiet, empty road ahead. "It's just—I saw red, and now I got you in trouble and you're missing class because of me—"

Shaking her head, Clara cut him off with a quick hand gesture, pinning him down with a warning glance. "That guy had it coming," she said. "And you wouldn't have ended up in this situation without me in the first place. I feel responsible too, you know?"

He sniffled, wiping his face. "You don't have to," he replied. "I was an idiot."

She shook her head again. "After what that guy said to you, I wanted to punch him too," she said. "I'm not saying it was the smartest thing to do, but I get it."

Nodding softly, he leaned on her again, letting her lead the way through the streets. It was a quiet afternoon, the streets empty, the skies overcast without any sign of rain. In the distance, a car passed by. The wind carried a single brown leaf down the road.

Giselle wasn't home, Clara noted as she unlocked the door and let them both in, and that was probably for the best. She was in no mood to explain what she was doing at their place with a beat-up Freddie at her side, and Giselle would definitely ask questions. Which was her right, Clara knew. But right now she didn't want to talk about anything that had happened.

"You do look terrible," she remarked in a feeble attempt at humor as Freddie sat down in her desk chair, idly playing with one of the highlighters on her desk. "Hang on, be right back. Don't move."

He tried to protest, but she had already ducked into the bathroom and returned with a wet towel, cotton wipes and a bottle of wound disinfectant. "Good thing we still have that one," she said. "Giselle used to get really stupid injuries when she was drunk. Lately she hasn't needed it much though."

Nodding, Freddie took the towel and tried to clean his face, but his hands were so shaky that she took over after a moment. A strange emotion flickered across his face, then he closed his eyes and let it happen. When she looked closely, she found his lips trembling slightly.

"Does it still hurt?" she asked.

He swallowed, then shook his head. "Sorry," he said again.

"I told you, don't apologize. You're not the one I'm mad at here—okay, give me your arm." She picked up his forearm, inspecting the scrapes all along its side. "Are you hurt anywhere else?"

He didn't answer, and from his forearm she moved on to his hand, gently cleaning and disinfecting his still-bleeding knuckles. A faint hiss of pain escaped him, his fingers curling around her palm and squeezing. His hand was still trembling in her grip, and even when his fingers dug into her hand it wasn't enough to stop the shaking.

"Don't mind it," he muttered when he noticed her pausing. "It's the adrenaline…it'll go away on its own soon."

She frowned down at him. "You sure that's all it is?"

He swallowed hard. "I'm fine," he insisted, but his voice came out choked. "Just…"

Her frown deepened. "Just…what?"

"It's stupid."

"I'm sure it's not stupid. Is your side okay?" She motioned to his ribcage. "You got a pretty nasty hit there earlier."

Freddie opened his eyes. For a few heartbeats he looked like he wanted nothing more than to run.

Then he sighed, averted his gaze, and pulled up his shirt to reveal his side.

She had been right, Clara thought, extending a hesitant hand to inspect the large black bruise forming on his ribcage. He had taken a nasty hit. But that wasn't what she focused on. What caught her attention was something else.

The bruise on his ribs was new, sure, but it wasn't the only injury. Large parts of his torso were covered in scars, larger and smaller, scrapes and uneven cuts and a few that looked almost like burns. Some were new, freshly healed; but many of them were faded, barely visible, like they had been there for years and years. Maybe, she mused, even from childhood.

"People don't care."

Taking a sharp breath, he wiped a hand across his eyes, but he couldn't get rid of the tears. "They just stand by and let it happen," he said, and there it was again, that bitter despair from before. "How many people could be protected if someone said something? How many kids could be saved if someone gave a single shit?"

Clara's heart lurched in her chest. Sympathy crashed over her, so intense it almost choked her. "I know," she said. "People love to look away, but…not everyone." She tried to smile. "We care. And doesn't that still make a difference?"

"Not enough," he said.

"I know," she admitted. "But better than nothing."

He softened. At long last, his hand stopped shaking.

"Do you really have a girlfriend?" he asked after a pause.

Cracking a smile, she pulled his shirt back down, sitting perched on the edge of her desk. "Nope," she said. "Giselle and I made a deal to pretend to be each other's girlfriends in case someone asks." She grinned. "But I do like girls too, if that's what you're asking."

His eyes widened. "Too?"

"I'm bisexual." She shot him a half amused, half warning look. "Don't be weird about it."

"Me too."

Lighting up, Freddie rose to his feet, his eyes still red but his smile genuine. "That makes two of us."

Understanding dawned. From one second to another, his fury ran much deeper in her veins. "Yeah," she said softly. "You definitely deserved to punch that guy."

Freddie's smile widened. Clara smiled back.

Then he leaned forward and enveloped her in a tight, crushing hug.

"Thank you," he said quietly, burying his face in her shoulder. "You really are awesome."

~ ~ ~

Stepping out into the street, Freddie swallowed and pressed his palms over his eyes.

Someone who cared. Someone who listened to him and understood his anger. How many times had he wished for that ten years ago? How much better would things have been with someone like her in his life?

He'd never know now.

And right now, he could only be glad that no one saw him crying.